For a full-time touring band, gas costs can be the difference between living an adventurous, rugged life on the road and having to sit it out at home.

That was the situation Andy Reitz and his band, Defeater, faced, in April 2007 when it came time to buy a van for their first major U.S. tour, a two-month-long trek that took them across the country. Prohibiting major breakdowns and disasters, gas and maintenance costs would have been in the range of $4,000 to $5,000 at the time, according to several musicians who have been touring since.

“The time came, being in a band, where you actually consider buying a van,” Reitz recalls. Defeater’s initial plan was to purchase a junky van “that was probably gonna last the summer. Instead of doing that, I started looking into alternative fuel and biofuel.” Reitz consequently bought a diesel van and equipped it with the option to run on a secondary fuel system: vegetable oil. It became a more permanent solution than the preliminary plan.

It was a long-term decision that reflects how Reitz, as well as a number of other musicians across the U.S., are now using their band-based skills in novel ways to remain within the music industry without actually playing music. Today, only one in every 100,000 bands can be expected to support themselves financially without having to work a second job, according to various veterans and musicians in the industry. Traditionally, musicians often turn to teaching in some capacity, as Reitz tried for some time, but some are going in a different direction.

"It allows them to continue to be involved in the arts community," says Mark Jourdian, an internet marketer for Nettwerk Music Group, "as opposed to going and selling insurance."

Defeater completed the entire two-month tour in a newly converted van and Reitz, blessed with this freshly acquired knowledge and a network of bands in need, founded Greenvans in 2008 alongside friend Anthony Rovedo. The company offers like-minded touring bands vans equipped with this particular fuel option, and usually rent out their vans--they currently have four in their fleet with a trailer available for each--to between five and 10 bands a month.

“It’s easier to start a small business now than it ever has been in music,” says Louis Posen, founder of long-running independent label Hopeless Records. “People are learning things earlier now than when I started the label [in 1993].”

Peter Spellman, director of the Career Development Center at the Berklee College of Music and writer of several music business guidebooks, agrees. “There is a hyper-abundance of entrepreneurial information and market research at our fingertips,” Spellman says. “We have a global communication platform to test-market and communicate our ideas. I think the bar has been lowered for people to enter the music space and thousands really have.”

It’s a move a number of musicians have made, including: Glassjaw guitarist Justin Beck, who helped launch MerchDirect, a music and entertainment merchandising company; Guster co-frontman Adam Gardner, who teaches musicians and promotes environmental sustainability with his non-profit, Reverb, which he started with wife Lauren; and Dan Navetta, formerly of the Movielife and Heavy Rescue, who wrote a music video treatment and shot video for those bands before launching ApK Media with fellow musician Brian Lane.

For Reitz, it was alternative fuel options. Prior to forming Greenvans, he taught himself the installation and upkeep while converting Defeater’s own first official van. Despite the band’s increasing desire to hit the road and play more shows, their members do not expect to attain a level of success that would grant them a reasonable financial livelihood.

If someone in a band is not touring the country in a van, perhaps they'll rent one out to another band, as Reitz is doing with Greenvans (although, Defeater themselves tour between two and four months a year). If they're not actually playing the instrument, maybe it’s because they're the one making it, as Mike Ciprari does for SJC Drum Company, the custom drum kit business he launched with his older brother, Scott, in 2000.

“I started playing drums when I was nine,” the younger Ciprari says. “Shortly after, Scott took a kit from my cousin’s attic and just [redesigned] it and made it look cool.”

During this time, Mike was getting his Massachusetts-based band, No Trigger, off the ground. The brothers began to take SJC seriously when bands across the country began inquiring about the custom kit he was using.

“Black sparkle with red hardware,” Mike remembers. “At the time, not a lot of custom kits were out there, so it caught a lot of attention.” No Trigger played shows with then-fermenting bands like All Time Low and Four Year Strong, who requested SJC‘s services.

“Random bands that were nothing at the time,” Mike says, “and then got huge, which helped us make our name.” Both All Time Low and Four Year Strong are now on major labels and sell out venues with capacities in the range of 500 to 1000. One industry insider estimates that the former annually make more than $1 million.

Mike left No Trigger in the summer of 2006 to focus on SJC full-time, although he began talking to the band in March 2010 about rejoining them, a move he credits to the company’s increasing staff numbers and, especially, long-time friend Bryan Rushton, who works as A&R, new media and production manager for SJC.

“[Rushton] is the sole reason I am able to go [back] on tour,” Mike says. “When No Trigger approached me about being back in the band, I was like, ‘Alright, cool. I can do this now because the company’s kinda off the ground and stable, and I don’t have to be there all the time.’”

Mike is even taking advantage of his company’s ever-increasing stability to play as a fill-in drummer for upstate New York-based band Polar Bear Club on their current tour. While he’s only receiving a daily food stipend in exchange for his drumming duties, he says he’s been approached by two or three people every night of the tour inquiring about SJC, and has been able to make sales in the process. “Like a traveling salesman,” he says.

No Trigger, who went on an indefinite hiatus in 2008, never made much money in the first place themselves, and they are only planning on picking things back up with recordings and international touring in the approaching months. They aren’t planning on reaping many financial benefits from their renewed activity.

“We only made money to buy food,” Mike says of his initial time in No Trigger, “and the occasional royalty checks from sales of [our only full-length album], Canyoneer…which wasn’t much,” he adds, laughing.

Reitz, meanwhile, remains with Defeater, although he does not consider the band a full-time venture, either in terms of financial benefits or workload.

“We manage it pretty well,” Reitz says of his band’s financial situation. “We’ve gone in and out of debt for a long time. We sustain ourselves on the road: buy some food; pay for our van; and generally treat everybody comfortably. But we’re certainly not making money in the band.”

Both are reluctant to disclose just how much of a salary they’re culling from their companies, but both SJC and Greenvans are providing respective livelihoods to the musicians.

“It’s small potatoes compared to what people think,” Mike, who manages to pay for his rent, food and gas among other personal necessities from the salary he takes, says. “I put a lot of the money back into the company because if I’m personally taking a large amount, then the company may or may not be there in a week or a month or a year--just due to the economy right now and fluxuation in orders and sales.” He estimates that the company customizes about 10 drum kits a week.

“[Greenvans] comfortably sustains itself,” Reitz says in terms of the company’s own financial stability. And it pays his rent, “whereas the band is a fun thing we all get to enjoy. [It’s] really a creative outlet for us, whereas the business has a goal, and has been my personal comfort for a long time.” Reitz says the company rents out its vans to anywhere between two and 10 bands a month, depending on the season; the summer finds them doing the most business during the course of a calendar year.

Prior to earning full-time status with Greenvans, Reitz had been trying to make it as a professional musician, a popular way for musicians to try and support themselves. He gave drum lessons to both private students and at Matt’s Music store in Weymouth, Mass., and worked at Alpha Omega Studios in North Reading, Mass., often as a hired gun to play on other bands’ records.

“One was a singer-songwriter thing that helped me pay the rent,” Reitz recalls. “It helped me survive.”

Mike, meanwhile, worked a number of jobs before going off to college and spending school breaks touring with No Trigger. The most recent one, in 2002, was at Park ‘n Shop, a chain of supermarkets based in Central Massachusetts. “These jobs, really, were the sole source of income for SJC at the beginning. We pooled the money we made working at those jobs to put into the company.”

“When you’re passionate about something, you can find your way into it,” Rob Hitt says. Hitt formerly drummed for the New Jersey band Midtown before they went on an indefinite hiatus in 2005. Hitt, who often handled promotional and managerial work for the band, largely makes his living now as a band manager for CRUSH Management, whose clients include Hole, Train and Gym Class Heroes.

“It was 1996,” Hitt recollects, “and the first band I was playing shows in, I also made our website.” Later, with Midtown, “I put [them] on Friendster [and] MySpace. I sent email blasts to our mailing lists in the late 1990s.

“[Midtown] was my full-time job. Was I living off of it?” Hitt chuckles. “I wasn’t in debt. However, you’d have that thing where your bank account’s always between $500 and $2,500, and it just bounces in that range. That’s what it was like for me and Midtown. It was month to month without having a monthly salary, so it was scary.”

Hitt insists that his band did not cease activity because of their financial situation, but rather because they “felt that it ran its course.” Still, he says he has greater financial stability working at CRUSH, and he no longer considers himself a practicing drummer. His creative outlet these days is explored through I Surrender Records, the label he founded in 2003 and says went full-time in 2005.

On the other end of this career spectrum is Gregg Andrew Dellarocca, who plays guitar and sings for Long Island band, the Republic of Wolves. Dellarocca helps record his band’s own songs--as well as other bands’--and helps develop his band’s visual aesthetic as a graphic design artist.

However, it’s not yet his financial livelihood, as he makes anywhere between $1,500 and $3,500 a month, paying a reduced rent to live in his parents’ basement. He says he handles about three or four clients a month between studio and graphic design work.

DellaRoca began designing website and MySpace layouts for bands before he began any musical projects of his own. But when he found himself in a band for the first time, they wanted to cut their own demos.

“I just found out what I needed for that, bought it, did it, and ended up going to school for it,” he says. Soon, other bands in need of low-budget recordings sought him out.

“When you’re a senior in high school and make $200 recording a band,” he continues, “it seems insane to you, because it’s not work. It’s fun.”

While the Republic of Wolves have begun to take their band increasingly seriously, having hired a publicist, recording a proper studio album set for release in November, and booking their first extended series of tour dates, DellaRocca is looking to advance his recording and graphic design work into a full-time endeavor that would enable him to move out of his parents’ basement and live on his own.

“I don’t really wanna work anywhere else,” DellaRocca says. “I’ve had a lot of jobs. I worked at like every food place you could imagine. I [hated] it. I don’t wanna be told what to do by anyone. I’m totally capable of making my own living doing what I want to do.”